The Diary of a Teenage Girl
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a 2015 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Marielle Heller, based on the graphic novel The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner. The film stars Bel Powley as a 15-year-old girl who becomes sexually active by starting a relationship with her mother's boyfriend. It also stars Kristen Wiig, Alexander Skarsgård, Christopher Meloni, Quinn Nagle, and Austin Lyon. It premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and had a limited release on August 7, 2015 by Sony Pictures Classics.
Plot
In 1976 San Francisco, 15-year-old aspiring cartoonist Minnie begins keeping an audio diary. She is stirred by her awakening sexuality and wants to lose her virginity. She fears she may be unattractive, but receives attention from boys at school.
When Minnie's bohemian mother Charlotte is too busy to go out with her boyfriend Monroe, she suggests he take Minnie out instead. At a bar, Minnie and Monroe flirt and she tells him she wants to sleep with him. They begin meeting at his apartment and having sex. She shares the details of her sexual experiences with her friend Kimmie, as well as recording them on her tape recorder. At a comic book store, Minnie sees cartoonist Aline Kominsky signing books. She mails Aline her first comic, about a woman walking through town.
Minnie sleeps twice with her schoolmate Ricky, but he finds her sexual enthusiasm intimidating. At a bar, Minnie and Kimmie decide to pose as prostitutes. They fellate two boys in the bathroom, but the next day they agree it was a bad choice. Minnie's stepfather, Pascal, calls from New York City and invites Minnie to live with him, but she declines.
Charlotte loses her job as a librarian. Minnie and her younger sister Gretel ask Pascal for money, and though he is irritated, he sends the family a check. Minnie, Kimmie, and Monroe have a threesome. Minnie and Monroe take acid together and Monroe has a bad trip, convinced they are being watched. During the trip he tells Minnie he loves her and she realizes that she no longer cares for him. Monroe begins making plans for them to be together when she is 18 and Minnie leaves him.
Charlotte grows suspicious of the relationship between Minnie and Monroe, but he convinces her that she is imagining things. Charlotte discovers Minnie's audio diary, and confronts Minnie and Monroe. She decides that Minnie and Monroe must now marry, which Monroe agrees to. Minnie runs away from home in disgust and begins seeing a risk-taking lesbian, Tabatha. When Tabatha brings her to a drug dealer, having told him that Minnie will have sex with him for the drugs, Minnie returns to her family.
Minnie finds a letter from Aline encouraging her to draw more comics. Selling her comics and zines on the beach, Minnie runs into Monroe. She is cold towards him, and they go their separate ways. Minnie reflects on her emotional growth and realizes that the only way to find happiness is by loving herself, not by depending on another person's affection.
Cast
- Bel Powley as Minnie Goetze
- Kristen Wiig as Charlotte Worthington
- Alexander Skarsgård as Monroe Rutherford
- Christopher Meloni as Pascal MacCorkill
- Austin Lyon as Ricky Wasserman
- Madeleine Waters as Kimmie Minter
- Margarita Levieva as Tabatha
- Quinn Nagle as Chuck Saunders
- Abigail Wait as Gretel
- John Parsons as Burt
